tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post543302597577224242..comments2019-02-22T07:03:45.588-08:00Comments on Haq's Musings: How America Promotes "We're the Good Guys" NarrativeRiaz Haqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-50570196125026506072018-08-21T16:38:20.989-07:002018-08-21T16:38:20.989-07:00Germany calls for global payments system free of U...Germany calls for global payments system free of US<br />Foreign minister seeks European autonomy on issues like Iran<br /><br /><br />https://www.ft.com/content/23ca2986-a569-11e8-8ecf-a7ae1beff35b<br /><br /><br />German foreign minister Heiko Maas<br />Germany’s foreign minister has called for the creation of a new payments system independent of the US as a means of rescuing the nuclear deal between Iran and the west that Donald Trump withdrew from in May.<br /><br />Writing in the German daily Handelsblatt, Heiko Maas said Europe should not allow the US to act “over our heads and at our expense”.<br /><br />“For that reason it’s essential that we strengthen European autonomy by establishing payment channels that are independent of the US, creating a European Monetary Fund and building up an independent Swift system,” he wrote.<br /><br />Mr Maas’s intervention was the “strongest call yet for EU financial and monetary autonomy vis-à-vis US,” said Thorsten Benner, director of the Global Public Policy Institute, a Berlin-based think-tank.<br /><br />The foreign minister’s article highlights the depth of the dilemma facing European politicians as they struggle to keep the Iran deal alive while coping with the fallout of US sanctions imposed by Mr Trump against companies doing business with Tehran.<br /><br />The EU has committed itself to the agreement and has vowed to protect European businesses from punitive measures adopted by Washington. But that has failed to convince EU companies, who are more interested in maintaining their access to the lucrative US market than in the more modest opportunities presented by Iran.<br /><br />Last month Washington rebuffed a high-level European plea to exempt crucial industries from sanctions. Mike Pompeo, US secretary of state, and Steven Mnuchin, Treasury secretary, formally rejected an appeal for carve-outs in finance, energy and healthcare made by ministers from Germany, France, the UK and the EU.<br /><br />[Europe must] form a counterweight when the US crosses red lines<br /><br />Heiko Maas, German foreign minister<br />On Monday, Total, France’s largest energy company, announced it was pulling out of a big Iranian gas project, after admitting it might be affected by threatened US measures against Iran’s oil and gas industry.<br /><br />Swift, a Belgium-based global payment system that facilitates many of the world’s cross-border transactions, is also affected. Unless it wins an exemption from sanctions, it will be required by the US to cut off targeted Iranian banks from its network by early November or face possible countermeasures against both its board members and the financial institutions that employ them.<br /><br />These could include asset freezes and US travel bans for the individuals, and restrictions on banks’ ability to do business in the US.<br /><br />Mr Maas’s words Handelsblatt come with relations between Germany and the US in their worst state for decades. Mr Trump has chastised Berlin over its large trade surplus, its relatively low military spending and its support for Nord Stream 2, a new gas pipeline that will bring Russian gas directly to Germany.<br /><br />Meanwhile, Berlin has looked on in dismay as Mr Trump has withdrawn the US from the Iran deal and the Paris climate treaty, imposed import tariffs on EU steel and aluminium and appeared to question America’s commitment to Nato.<br /><br />Mr Maas said it was vital for Europe to stick with the Iran deal. “Every day the agreement continues to exist is better than the highly explosive crisis that otherwise threatens the Middle East,” he said.<br /><br />He also called for the creation of a “balanced partnership” with the US in which the Europeans filled the gaps left where the US withdrew from the world. Europe must, he said, “form a counterweight when the US crosses red lines”.<br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-87570053178287330102018-07-23T17:05:55.629-07:002018-07-23T17:05:55.629-07:00US funding for Pakistani journalists raises questi...US funding for Pakistani journalists raises questions of transparency<br />US State Department funding, supplied through a nonprofit intermediary, supports the presence of two Pakistani journalists in Washington. Some observers say the relationship should be more transparent.<br /><br />By Issam Ahmed, Correspondent SEPTEMBER 2, 2011<br /><br />https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2011/0902/US-funding-for-Pakistani-journalists-raises-questions-of-transparency<br /><br />Two Pakistani journalists filing reports home from Washington are quietly drawing their salaries from US State Department funding through a nonprofit intermediary, highlighting the sophisticated nature of America’s efforts to shape its image abroad.<br /><br />Neither of the two media organizations, Express News and Dunya News, discloses that their reporters are paid by the nonprofit America Abroad Media (AAM) on their websites or in the reports filed by their correspondents. Though the journalists have worked under the auspices of AAM since February, AAM only made their links to the news organizations known on their website Wednesday, after being contacted by the Monitor.<br /><br />The lack of transparency by the Pakistani organizations involved could heighten Pakistani mistrust of the US government, which is seen as having an undue level of influence in their country’s affairs.<br /><br />“If an American journalist working as a foreign correspondent in Pakistan was paid in a similar manner, would it be morally or professionally acceptable for his news organization or audience?” asks Badar Alam, editor of Pakistan’s prestigious English-language Herald magazine.<br /><br /><br />The amount currently allocated for the project is some $2 million over two years from the public diplomacy funds allocated by the State Department, according to State Department officials in Washington familiar with the project. That includes salaries for the two correspondents – Huma Imtiaz of Express News and Awais Saleem of Dunya News – and a bureau for both TV channels.<br /><br />Aaron Lobel, president of AAM, says his organization receives donations from a number of private funders, too, which it mainly spends on its programs on international affairs that run on Public Radio International in the United States.<br /><br />The timing of AAM’s website disclosure – after contact from the Monitor – was a coincidence and the update had been planned for “several months,” he says. “We are a small organization with two web guys. They are really working hard on the new site – not just about the Pakistan project but on everything we do. Yes, it would have been better to have a lot of information [before]. We have been preparing this site for a long time to provide that information.”<br /><br />“The content production is done first and foremost [by] Pakistanis who are here and work with their channels back home to produce content,” says Lobel.<br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-13283401261254244692018-07-09T13:40:58.601-07:002018-07-09T13:40:58.601-07:00#Trump administration opposes #breastfeeding resol...#Trump administration opposes #breastfeeding resolution, defends formula makers&#39; corporate interests, intimidates sponsoring nations at the @UN affiliated World Health Assembly in #Geneva. #Ecuador #breastmilk https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/health/world-health-breastfeeding-ecuador-trump.html<br /><br />A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly.<br /><br />Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes.<br /><br />Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.<br /><br />American officials sought to water down the resolution by removing language that called on governments to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding” and another passage that called on policymakers to restrict the promotion of food products that many experts say can have deleterious effects on young children.<br /><br />----------<br /><br />When that failed, they turned to threats, according to diplomats and government officials who took part in the discussions. Ecuador, which had planned to introduce the measure, was the first to find itself in the cross hairs.<br /><br />The Americans were blunt: If Ecuador refused to drop the resolution, Washington would unleash punishing trade measures and withdraw crucial military aid. The Ecuadorean government quickly acquiesced.<br /><br />--------------<br /><br />The showdown over the issue was recounted by more than a dozen participants from several countries, many of whom requested anonymity because they feared retaliation from the United States.<br /><br />Health advocates scrambled to find another sponsor for the resolution, but at least a dozen countries, most of them poor nations in Africa and Latin America, backed off, citing fears of retaliation, according to officials from Uruguay, Mexico and the United States.<br /><br />“We were astonished, appalled and also saddened,” said Patti Rundall, the policy director of the British advocacy group Baby Milk Action, who has attended meetings of the assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization, since the late 1980s.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-36439542399438084682018-06-26T18:12:50.959-07:002018-06-26T18:12:50.959-07:00So if the milk turns sour, blame the cow? So if the milk turns sour, blame the cow? usindnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-54668674380815130212018-06-23T21:45:45.119-07:002018-06-23T21:45:45.119-07:00https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/am...<br />https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/america-is-regressing-into-a-developing-nation-for-most-people<br /><br /><br /><br />America is Regressing into a Developing Nation for Most People<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRs4VcHprqI<br /><br />The US Middle Class is Shrinking and Moving Towards a &quot;Dual Economy&quot;<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6P8ECW5S3A<br />What the ‘Dual Economy’ Model for Developing Countries Reveals About Today’s America<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />&quot;In looking at the link between labor stratification and crime, Crutchfield divides jobs into two types: “primary sector” and “secondary sector.” Primary-sector jobs offer decent pay, benefits and the opportunity for promotion. Secondary-sector employment is the opposite. It offers dead-end jobs with low wages, no benefits and high levels of instability.<br /><br />Crutchfield’s bottom line: Adult employment in primary-sector jobs reduces crime, while employment in secondary-sector jobs does not. This is an important fact for public officials to recognize, since much of the recent growth of the economy has been in the secondary sector -- employment many young people deride as “slave jobs.” It is also important to recognize that while crime has been declining for decades, which is surely the result of better policing as well as demographics, the overall decline masks persistent high levels of crime in some places and among some groups.&quot;<br />http://www.governing.com/gov-institute/funkhouser/gov-slave-jobs-crime.html<br />Want More Crime with That Burger?<br />Good jobs are proven to reduce crime, yet much of the economy&#39;s recent growth is due to dead-end jobs with low wages and no benefits.<br />http://www.caixabankresearch.com/en/jay-gatsbys-american-dream-between-inequality-and-social-mobility<br /><br />Jay Gatsby’s American Dream: between inequality and social mobility<br /><br />So why are Blacks incarcerated at such high rates as they form such large segment of post white US?<br />Right wants to deflect from policy failure that even the investment manager understands.<br /><br />As Putnam states: Children who grow up without their biological father perform worse on standardized tests, earn lower grades, and stay in school for fewer years regardless of race and class.”<br /><br />https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2015/07/19/robert-putnam-knows-the-real-reason-the-american-dream-is-fading/<br /><br />Robert Putnam Knows The Real Reason the American Dream Is Fading<br />Mayrajnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-48592967892054539772018-06-23T17:56:22.904-07:002018-06-23T17:56:22.904-07:00Here&#39;s a post I wrote back in 2009:
Will Amer...Here&#39;s a post I wrote back in 2009:<br /><br />Will American Capitalism Survive?<br /><br />https://www.riazhaq.com/2009/02/will-capitalism-survive.html<br /><br />As the modern system of capitalism faces the most serious challenge of its existence since Adam Smith, the name of John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) is being regularly invoked by economists, politicians, bankers, and the media. And with good reason. Born in Cambridge, England, in 1883, the year Karl Marx died, Keynes probably saved capitalism from itself and kept Communists at bay. Keynesian Economics advocates the use of government monetary and fiscal policy to maintain full employment with low inflation. <br /><br />Keynes described Capitalism in the following words: &quot;Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.&quot;<br /><br />A well-known anti-Semite, Keynes once said, &quot;It is not agreeable to see civilization so under the ugly thumbs of its impure Jews who have all the money and the power and brains.&quot; As in the past financial crises, powerful Jews on Wall Street and in Washington are being held responsible by many as the culprits of the current economic collapse.<br /><br />In response to a severe recession or possible depression, Keynes suggested: &quot;The government should pay people to dig holes in the ground and then fill them up.&quot; He advocated massive spending by government to stimulate demand when all else fails. <br /><br />Who was Keynes? Here is how UC Berkeley&#39;s Robert Reich described him a few years ago: &quot;A Cambridge University don with a flair for making money, a graduate of England&#39;s exclusive Eton prep school, a collector of modern art, the darling of Virginia Woolf and her intellectually avant-garde Bloomsbury Group, the chairman of a life-insurance company, later a director of the Bank of England, married to a ballerina, John Maynard Keynes--tall, charming and self-confident--nonetheless transformed the dismal science into a revolutionary engine of social progress.&quot;<br /><br />Keynes was clearly a very smart man. His ideas of modern Capitalism have created unprecedented wealth and lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. And his ideas may still help save capitalism yet again. At least, that is the hope of the Obama administration and the backers of the massive stimulus package of about $800 billion recently passed by the US Congress. However, what Keynes couldn&#39;t have imagined are the new heights of avarice and wickedness of the modern political-industrial elite in America that has threatened the very foundations of the system that brought them wealth and power. During the last decade, the behavior of American capitalists and politicians has been unbelievably self-destructive.<br /><br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-66827788295724175412018-06-23T17:41:35.372-07:002018-06-23T17:41:35.372-07:00NA: &quot;I see this mindset a lot, that because A...NA: &quot;I see this mindset a lot, that because America is powerful it is no longer allowed to be a normal country that pursues its own interest,...&quot;<br /><br />Normal country? Which normal country seeks and achieves global economic, political, military and media dominance as the United States has? <br /><br />I suggest you read &quot;The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man&quot; by John Perkins. <br /><br />Perkins is himself a former an American &quot;Economic Hit Man&quot;. or EHM.<br /><br />Whatever little benefits that have flowed to the common people in the developing world have been an unintended side effect, not the goal of US policies. <br /><br />He has used a lot of declassified documents to show how the United States relies on EHMs, Jackals (intelligence agents and covert operatives) and its massive military power to control world&#39;s natural resources and to punish anyone who gets in the way by assassinations, coups and military invasions and occupations. <br /><br />Perkins gives specific examples of US actions in Latin America and Asia to back up his assertions. <br /><br />Perkins also explains how the US EHM system has come home to roost in the form of the use of money for political manipulation in Washington and debt bondage in the wider debt-fueled economy. <br /><br />The 2008 financial meltdown was just one symptom of it. The mounting student debt is another. Those who suffer the most from it are the average folks while the biggest beneficiaries are the wealthy corporations and their major shareholders.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-19150604585738964492018-06-21T19:22:34.629-07:002018-06-21T19:22:34.629-07:00&quot;None as powerful, resourceful and capable of...&quot;None as powerful, resourceful and capable of doing damage as the United States.&quot;<br />I see this mindset a lot, that because America is powerful it is no longer allowed to be a normal country that pursues its own interest, but instead must be relentlessly criticized for doing what everyone else does or would do in the same situation. Only if it becomes the willing servant of whoever is doing the criticizing can it be absolved of its sins. That&#39;s not how the world works. nayyer alinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-40822943970590536632018-06-21T19:17:44.771-07:002018-06-21T19:17:44.771-07:00The US government does not have a Department of Pr...The US government does not have a Department of Propaganda, and does not control &quot;narratives&quot;. The US has its pluses and minuses, but any good US history text covers the minuses quite well. I have a history degree from Stanford, and I learned all sorts of negative things about the US, including its Cold War shenanigans in Guatemala and Iran etc. Not many realize though that the US interfered quite heavily in French and Italian politics in the 1950&#39;s to block Communist parties there from entering government (they routinely won 20% of the seats in Parliamentary systems). Popular culture in all countries portray themselves as the good guys, nobody goes to the movies to be told they are bad. But in the US there are plenty of exceptions. The excellent Vietnam War documentary that aired nationwide on PBS by Ken Burns was both celebrated by critics, and was extremely critical of the lies and falsehoods and incompetence behind the Vietnam War. There are a hundred books and many movies critical of the Iraq War.<br /> The US also has its very good points. It is the most welcoming society to outsiders and immigrants. <br /> More importantly, in the grand sweep of human history, there were three colossal threats that blocked liberal civilization in the 20th century. The first was militarism and fascism, the second Anglo-French imperialism in Africa and Asia, and the third Communism. The US was instrumental in defeating through two world wars, diplomacy, and other means, all three, and it was the only country on Earth capable of doing so. It may have done so for self-interest, either in a narrow or an &quot;enlightened self-interest&quot; version, but it did do so. I infinitely prefer living within the sphere of American influence rather than the version of history in which the Nazis or the Soviets or the imperialists still hold sway. <br /> American leaders after World War Two wanted to create a global order of liberal democratic capitalist states led by the US. If one surveys the globe, those countries that embraced that order are much better places to live than those that opposed or rejected it (North Korea, Cuba, Syria, Burma, Russia, Maoist China, most Arab countries etc etc). During the Cold War the US would sometimes have to choose between democratic systems that would put communists into power, or backing dictators that supported capitalism. In that situation, they often went with the dictator, and one can criticize those choices. But that doesnt change the big picture, democracy has expanded from less than 10 nations in 1939 to nearly 100 now. Freedom House ranks 45% of the world&#39;s nations as free and another 30% as partly free. The biggest countries that are still &quot;Not Free&quot; are China, Russia, Iran, and DR Congo. Turkey has backslid into &quot;Not Free&quot; but I think they will turn around eventually. There is also the case of Egypt, where the Arab Spring failed, but that is the fault of the Egyptians and no one else.nayyer alinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-19917453701592103812018-06-21T13:45:09.545-07:002018-06-21T13:45:09.545-07:00https://worldjusticeproject.org/our-work/wjp-rule-...https://worldjusticeproject.org/our-work/wjp-rule-law-index/wjp-rule-law-index-2017%E2%80%932018Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-83657046354480705822018-06-19T22:41:22.451-07:002018-06-19T22:41:22.451-07:00Anon: &quot;Show me a nation which doesn&#39;t exa...Anon: &quot;Show me a nation which doesn&#39;t exaggerate it&#39;s own greatness and white washes it&#39;s crimes..&quot;<br /><br />None as powerful, resourceful and capable of doing damage as the United States. Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-64864340766797322482018-06-19T21:58:23.138-07:002018-06-19T21:58:23.138-07:00Show me a nation which doesn&#39;t exaggerate it&#...Show me a nation which doesn&#39;t exaggerate it&#39;s own greatness and white washes it&#39;s crimes..Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-87872431803921552782018-06-19T21:57:11.932-07:002018-06-19T21:57:11.932-07:00The propagandistic nature of the liberal media: In...The propagandistic nature of the liberal media: Interview with Florian Zollmann<br /><br />http://truepublica.org.uk/global/jonathan-cook-the-corporate-medias-world-of-illusions/<br /><br /><br />Jonathan Cook: The corporate media’s world of illusions<br />https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2017/01/17/german-journalist-who-spilled-the-beans-on-cia-media-influence-has-died-at-56-of-heart-attack/<br /><br /><br />German Journalist Who Spilled the Beans on CIA Media Influence Has Died at 56 of Heart Attack<br />https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2014/10/08/non-official-cover-respected-german-journalist-blows-whistle-on-how-the-cia-controls-the-media/<br /><br />“Non-Official Cover” – Respected German Journalist Blows Whistle on How the CIA Controls the Media<br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGqi-k213eE<br /><br /><br />https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-28/top-german-journalist-admits-mainstream-media-completely-fake-we-all-lie-cia<br /><br />Fahimnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-74800257744698122452018-06-19T21:55:10.489-07:002018-06-19T21:55:10.489-07:00Ian Sinclair interviews Dr Florian Zollmann, a Lec...Ian Sinclair interviews Dr Florian Zollmann, a Lecturer in Journalism at Newcastle University and author of the recent book Media, Propaganda and the Politics of Intervention (Peter Lang, 2017). Zollmann starts by setting out the main findings of his study.<br /><br />https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/ian-sinclair/propagandistic-nature-of-liberal-media-interview-with-florian-zollmann<br /><br />Florian Zollmann: Leading news organisations in liberal democracies employ a double-standard when reporting on human rights violations: If countries designated to be ‘enemies’ of the West (in my study, I look at cases from the past including the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999, Libya in 2011 and Syria in 2012) conduct human rights violations, the news media highlight these abuses and report demands for action to stop human rights breaches. Such measures may entail policies with potentially serious effects for the target countries, including sanctions and military intervention. If, on the other hand, Western states or their ‘allies’ (in my study, I look at cases from the past including the US-led Coalition in Iraq in 2004 and Egypt in 2013) are the perpetrators of human rights violations that are similar or in excess of those conducted by ‘enemies’, the news media employ significantly less investigatory zeal in their reporting and virtually no measures to stop abuses are suggested.<br /><br />My study shows, on the basis of an assessment of extensive quantitative and textual data, that the news media utilise different journalistic norms in terms of how they convey emotional sentiment, handle facts and evidence, use sources and perspective and classify events. These journalistic double standards, then, translate into a radically dichotomised news framing of problem definitions, responsibility of actors and policy options in response to what constitute relatively similar human rights violations: Official ‘enemies’ are depicted as pariah states, facing international condemnation and intervention. Western states and their ‘allies’ are depicted as benign forces, which may at best be criticised for using the wrong tactics and policy approaches. The dynamics of such dichotomised propaganda campaigns have had the effect that only some bloodbaths received visibility and scrutiny in the public sphere.<br /><br />Mayrajnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-25251896764636424882018-06-19T19:53:07.901-07:002018-06-19T19:53:07.901-07:00This article has explained thoroughly how American...This article has explained thoroughly how American foreign relations are maintained. In simple words it practices the principle of Might is right.Pakistan kay mashhoor mazahia shaer nay ek Qataa kaha:-“Tumhari Bhains kaisay hay kay jab laathi humari hay/Ab is laathi ki zad mein jo bhi aayay woh humara hay//Mazammat kariyon say tum humara kya bigado gay/Tumharay vote kya hotay hain jab Veto humara hay!!”Habibullahnoreply@blogger.com